[robinjfisher]

I'm just beginning to push my product (it's been around for 6 years) and have certainly noticed the customer requests increasing.

I agree with a lot of the advice here and in particular I've just started building out the knowledge base in Intercom to mitigate some of the support queries.

Sales is tough but can be worth it. I've spent lunch hours walking round the business park where I work on the phone and those calls have led to multiple other leads where I've been working with a consultant rather than the end client. Putting the time in does help.

One thing I would say: be honest that the app is a side project whilst you grow it. I've found customers very understanding and willing to accommodate calls at specific times or accepting of slight delays in support queries.

Good luck.

[daliwali]

Care to explain how your product has been around for 6 years and you're just beginning to push it?

[robinjfisher]

Of course. Started as a side project, part of learning to code. Had my mom's company as first subscriber and then periodically people would find me and sign up. They were paying £13/month and it dropped into the bank account - nice side earner.

Never really had time to promote it and Adwords is just an expensive game unless one has data on conversion rates and can accurately calculate a CPA. So, it's kinda trundled along with me tinkering in spare time - upgrading the code base but not really developing it.

Recently did a Slack integration which has noticeably increased traffic (1-2 trial signups per day)[1] and that's driving more development requests and encouraging me to blog a bit more, promote on social etc.

I've also been working with some HR consultants who are selling to their clients. Long term plans are to build our more of a basic HRIS rather than just focus on absence management. Waiting for Digital Ocean to launch their object storage so I can see what that looks like versus S3 or similar.

Main challenge is to balance time between feature requests and marketing. One of the suggestions I received here many years ago[2] was to "internationalise" the language so need to have landing page which is more US-oriented e.g. PTO management.

[1] https://pasteboard.co/GDUbwPA.png QTD numbers from Stripe. So just over a month. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3666318

[bobwaycott]

It’s been a side project?